There is a lot of people saying “oh Delta skippers get $400k/yr” etc. You’ve got to remember that aviation in the US is very much a climb the ladder game. A lot of these guys started out in their teens or early 20s flying bug smashers and earning peanuts. There is an American guy on YouTube with 40 years experience and still doesn’t have enough seniority to fly LHS on the 777 at one of the majors. It’s the same in other parts of the world I.e. Aus/Nz.
In euroland it’s not so seniority driven and you can progress relatively quickly, even if you are hindered by recession or redundancy. People join airlines in Europe in their 40s and can retire as wide body captains. In Europe you start on a reasonable salary and you progress relatively quickly to captain with a good salary. The spread of earnings in Europe are not the same as the rest of the world, you generally don’t earn peanuts like a crop sprayer or the fortunes of a Dellta captain.
My my point is, if you were willing to sit down in front of excel and work out the career average salary of a US pilot versus a European pilot; you’d probably find they are very similar.
Anyway, if you are becoming a pilot for the money; you are crazy!